Thursday, June 30, 2016

A few days ago I got calls from staffers complaining how their studio wouldn't let them work in multiple jobs or receive multiple screen credits.

... Supervisors told us we couldn't direct and board on one show and receive two credits because union rules wouldn't allow it. ...

This was news to me. But I've only worked at the Guild for twenty-seven years, so what do I know? Maybe I should re-read all the footnotes to be certain I didn't miss something.

But I've run into the "It's not us! It's the u-nion!" gambit before, at a wide array of studios. Whenever a manager or supervisor is too chickensht and gutless to own inconvenient company policy, they point at non-existent rules that the lead-footed Animation Guild hands down. A couple of my long-time studio favorites:

"We'd LOVE to give you more than two weeks vacation per year, but that's all the union contract says we can give you."

"We've got to keep you an apprentice another six months. That's the union rule." ...

This is horsesht. I wish these dweebs would grow some spines and just tell employees the studio makes the rules, since they fcking well do.

Why your studio would want to piss off talent when the market is this tight makes no sense to me, but jackasses come in all shapes and sizes. Tell your supervisor that the union guy says the union has NO rules about doing two or three jobs and getting two or three credits. Musker and Clements get two and three credits on most of their movies, the Guild has never made a peep! Because there are no rules. ...

The Guild contract specifies wage floors and minimum working conditions. It says nothing about maximums because there freaking aren't any. If somebody has the leverage to negotiate two months of vacation or ten grand a week, the Guild doesn't stand in the way. In fact the new contract, like most before it, says

Nothing in this Agreement shall prevent any individual from negotiating and obtaining from the Producer better conditions and terms of employment that those herein provided. [Article 4.C.] ...

So are we clear? If anybody wants to do the script and storyboards, draw the layouts and then animate a feature-length epic, nothing in the contract prevents them from doing so. The studio might say "no" but the Guild and its collective bargaining agreement are totally fine with it.

Okay, so maybe the roll-out date is a surprise. Hard to believe that this particular title with a "2" after its name could be.

... Standing in front of a not so subtle brick background, Rich Moore and Phil Johnston, the director and writer, respectively, of the first Wreck-It Ralph made the announcement on Facebook Live earlier today. But they weren’t alone. As they tried to make it official, John C. Reilly, who was wearing giant Wreck-It Ralph fists, kept interrupting wondering where he could find the almond milk and asking why Moore and Johnston were standing behind bricks. The three also announced that the film would be released on March 9, 2018, much earlier than the unannounced Disney Animation Studios title they have dated for 2020 – which may be for a different film entirely. ...

In today's entertainment industry, followups to successful animated features are as shocking as the sun coming up in the east. Second, third and fourth movies to Toy Story, Shrek, or Ice Age are to be expected. Merchandise must be sold. Ancillary markets must be served. Profits must be generated.

And conglomerates know that even robust franchises run down over time, so originals must be produced from time to time in the hope (expectation?) of creating brand-new tent-poles to generate more profits.

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

The L.A. Times profiled the training of young North Korean minds last month, and referenced this:

Apparently the immortal North Korean classic Squirrel and Hedgehog (produced by the glorious People's Collective, SEK Studios) has been instructing tomorrow's Socialist workers for some time. Thirty exciting episodes are accessible on YouTube.

So the big question: When is Netflix going to order fifty-two fresh episodes?

DreamWorks Animation releases its next animated feature on November 3rd. The trailer for same dropped earlier today.

Like most animated features launched into production, Trolls has gone through its share of story and personnel changes. The picture, in development for several years, is directed by Mike Mitchell and co-directed by Walt Dohrn. Having Justin Timberlake in charge of the music can't hurt the movie's commercial prospects.

These agreements, while having lots in common, are not the same. TSL is lineally descended from the Guild agreement that was written in 1952, but the TSL document is shorter, with fewer wage categories, and includes positions covered by the Editors Guild and Cinematographers Guild.

The TSL contract got negotiated in 1999, shortly after Diz Co's purchase of Dream Quest Images, a visual effects studio located in the further reaches of the Simi Valey. After Disney's purchase, DQI was merged with Disney Feature Animation and renamed "The Secret Lab" (after a location in the hand-drawn feature The Emperor's New Groove). For a few hard-scrabble years, the Lab operated as the Mouse's internal live-action VFX studio. The TSL agreement was originally formulated as a visual effects contract.

Sadly, the visual effects division didn't last very long, and in the early oughts, The Secret Lab was closed. But the IATSE contract under which it operated lived on, since most of Disney Feature Animation's regular staff were working had migrated to the TSL contract from the 839 agreement.

The reason? CG animation.

Here in 2016, Disney uses two related animation contracts. The Animation Guild/839 agreement is employed by Walt Disney Television Animation. And the TSL agreement is used by Walt Disney Animation Studios, also DisneyToon Studios.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc's chief executive, has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit over what a minority shareholder called an "extraordinarily valuable" side deal he struck as part of the $3.8 billion sale of the studio to Comcast Corp.

Comcast, the owner of NBCUniversal and the largest U.S. cable distributor, agreed in April to pay $41 in cash per DreamWorks share and Katzenberg agreed to vote his controlling stock for the deal, assuring investor approval. The deal for is expected to close by the end of this year.

John Musker: We were emulating MTV in its heyday and this number was always meant to be this big music video. When we were trying to visualize this I was on a plane, and I was listening to the track and I was watching an NBA highlight reel and hearing the song in my headset and thought, ‘oh we should really do a video where we intercut the great sports exploits of Hercules intercut with a dance number.’ The other really big music video at the time that this was influenced by was C+C Music Factory’s “Things That Make You Go Hmmm.” I had watched that video and broken down how they did it shot by shot, and it was really cool. ...

What makes this different than the usual live-action reference/rotoscope thingie is the music video/NBA mashup.

The directors conceived this music sequence, and then pre-planned and choreographed it. As Mr. Clements says, somewhat similar to the Marge Champion [Belcher] dancing in the rotoscope for Snow White, but considerably more complex (or as Ron says, a "crazier scale")

Monday, June 27, 2016

Here's how the animation business is going here in the City of the Angels:

A Disney lawyer explains to me how the Mouse's TV animation division is bursting at the seams and needs to find smaller studios around town to sub-contract a number of its shows. "We just don't have the room to do all of them."

I am skeptical about this (it's a Disney corporate lawyer, after all) until TAG members at Disney tell me that the television animation division is adding another three floors of work space to its already sizable presence at Burbank Media Center North. And independent studios in Glendale and Hollywood hire extra staff to do the new Disney shows they've taken on. ...

I visit Warner Bros. Animation at the Warner Ranch. I note that there are a lot of empty offices and cubes in one of the buildings WBA occupies on the lot. A supervisor tells me:

Management's moving a lot of people around. They'll be needing more space here, so units are going to the Pinnacle Building on Alameda. I don't know what they plan to do with the cartoonists they have at Burbank Studios [the old NBC lot, also on Alameda.].

Oh yeah. The studio has lost some story artists, people they couldn't afford to lose. But the employees didn't like the way the studio was treating them, so they landed other jobs and left. They usually don't do things like that, but there's a lot of jobs at other places. Upper management has put out the word, We'll need to be nicer to artists." ...

Meantime, DreamWorks Animation tv continues to employ artists, timers, designers and writers as the company fulfills its Netflix contracts. And the Animation Guild keeps taking in new members and re-activating old ones. And industry vets were complaining about not finding much work four years ago are now turning down jobs.

As one free-lancer recently told me: I've had three days off since the first of the year."

Add On: After communicating with powers-that-be at Warner Bros., please know that the Warner Bros. Animation staff has expanded 35% over the past year.

If anyone interprets the above to mean "Warner Bros. is down-sizing", such is not the case. WBA has moved into new facilities outside the gates of the Warners Ranch, and produces a variety of animated projects, from Bugs Bunny to Scooby Do to super heroes.

At the same time, the Guild continues to receive complaints from Warners' artists.

What registers here is how visual effects for TV screens get geometrically more ambitious year by year. As computing power climbs and software becomes more powerful, visual effects are more dazzling and intricate even as they become less expensive to create.

It would be interesting to know what the effects budget is for Game of Thrones, and compare it to the effects budgets of The Jungle Book or Maleficent.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

When the documentary director Roger Ross Williams read early galleys of his journalist friend Ron Suskind’s book “Life, Animated,” a 2014 memoir about his autistic son Owen’s breakthrough thanks to his identification with Disney’s animated characters, he knew he wanted to tell the story on film and would have to use animation to do so.

“It was essential,” said Mr. Williams, who acquired the documentary rights to the book from Mr. Suskind. “My whole concept for the film was about bringing Owen’s inner world to life.”

Adapting “Life, Animated” into a movie (opening July 1) that includes more than five minutes of animation with Disney characters rendered by non-Disney animators required Disney’s blessing. ...

As the Gray Lady points out, this wasn't a case of Disney softening its usual corporate policy of robustly protecting copyright, but of a non-recurring, one-time company decision.

"I wouldn't read any corporate policy implications into this," says Sean Bailey, the president for motion picture production at Walt Disney Studios.

... The Secret Life of Pets is another slow-burn release. Going out in just the UK/Ireland and Norway this weekend, it played 70 dates for $15.2M worth of kibbles. After playing the Annecy festival recently and screening for European exhibs in Barcelona last week at CineEurope, Pets is pawing at new franchise potential for the Despicable Me/Minions partners. ...

Finding Dory now has an offshore cume of $110.3M after making a $37M splash in 37 markets this frame. There is much more to come for Disney/Pixar’s little fish as release is staggered across key plays over the summer and into September. Overall, excluding China, Dory dropped by 35% from last weekend in like-for-like markets. ...

Landing in 57 offshore markets, Roland Emmerich’s UFO return (sans Will Smith) Independence Day Resurgence scored a $102.13M opening this weekend. That is just within the $100M-$150M range we had heard on the disaster pic ahead of its bow. With an overall B CinemaScore, domestic audiences gave Resurgence a $41.6M start. ...

And it looks like Illumination Entertainment has another winner. And bragging rights to no money losing features??

Saturday, June 25, 2016

A long tradition of animation, along with high-tech visual effects and post-production sectors, has helped solidify the [Czech Republic's] place as a cinematic hub in the center of Europe.

As with production, the Czech vfx and post industries have benefited from the country’s film incentive program, which continues to lure major film and TV projects. “International productions in the Czech Republic are very dependent on rebates and subsidies,” says Vit Komrzy, managing director of Prague-based Universal Production Partners (UPP), the country’s leading post-production and vfx house.

UPP has handled vfx services for such recent shows as the FX series “Tyrant,” BBC’s “The Musketeers,” and Netflix’s “Marco Polo” while also continuing to work on major studio films such as “Gods of Egypt” and Robert Zemeckis’ “The Walk.” ...

Anyone who does't think governments around the globe won't continue to throw cash at movie producers of every size and stripe haven't been paying attention.

France does it. Britain does it. Canada does it. Various states in the U.S. of A. make a regular practice of handing out generous amounts of dollars.

From time to time, taxpayers n various locales get tired of shoveling greenbacks into the mouths of hungry conglomerates, and stop the practice. When that happens, the reaction of production companies is instantaneous: they pick up their ball and carry it off to cities, counties and whole countries willing to hand over cash in exchange for their august presence(s).

Dory's worldwide gross after a week on global screens stands at $264,005,902 with only a few foreign markets in play. 80% of it world take is in the U.S. and Canada. At the end of Finding Nemo's run thirteen years ago, 62.1% of its gross came from overseas.

The other animated movies in the marketplace? The Angry Birds Movie fell from the Top Ten on Friday and now has a total of $104,660,000, while The Jungle Book hovers around $357 million in domestic earnings, and Kung Fu Panda 3 has a handful of theaters across the fruited plain with a total gross of $143,425,000 after 149 days of release.

Friday, June 24, 2016

The last couple of days, I've been traipsing around Disney TVA, located at Burbank's fabled "Media Center North," which is cheek-by-jowl to the glamorous Bob Hope/Burbank Airport, where you can relive the excitement of air flight in the 1940s by waiting for your plane in a building that was built in the 1940s, when it was part of a private airdrome owned by the Lockheed Corporation.

But I digress. ...

Disney TVA occupies two different floors of one of the Media Center buildings, and is, according to different animation employees, looking to occupy more.

"Disney is going to fill up two or three extra floors with artists, writers and cartoon directors. A work crew guy downstairs said they just got finished filling up one floor with wall-to-wall cubicles, so TVA is going to have a lot bigger presence here." ...

The last few years, Disney has rented space at Northside, but seemed fine with a couple of floors. TVA has owned a larger footprint at the Disney Sonora building in Glendale, but the ratios of square footage between Burbank and Glendale could be changing. (The division also has a production located on Brand Boulevard in Glendale.)

Meanwhile, the Mouse's cartoon staff is telling me that Hasbro's animation arm, now located a mile and a half north on Hollywood Way, will soon be moving into Media Center North. Also too, word is around that DreamWorks (live-action) will be occupying a building across the quad from Disney TVA Northside.

Chalk all the above up as "scuttlebutt" at this point. It might all be absolutely true, or it might not. But it's what staff is telling me.

A week after Shanghai Disney opened its doors, China has become embroiled in a high-profile copyright court case with the children's entertainment giant over the striking similarities of a cartoon.

Disney subsidiaries Disney Enterprises Inc. and Pixar are suing Chinese companies G-Point, PPTV and Bluemtv for hosting images and posters of 'The Autobots', a Chinese film that was released in July 2015.

'The Autobots' was criticised last year at home and abroad for being visually similar to the Disney animated franchise 'Cars' but has only gained wide media attention since going to court on Tuesday.

Critics are sceptical over whether Disney will win the case, noting that China has ripped off overseas-produced cartoons before.

'Extremely similar'

Thousands of Chinese social media users are talking about the case on the popular Sina Weibo microblog, saying that 'The Autobots' is a "blatant copy" and that they "support Disney".

Chinese papers have also noted similarities between the two productions, but with more carefully worded editorials. The Beijing Economic Daily says that the two films are visually "extremely similar", and highlights that this is not the first time it has happened. ...

Disney has good results suing pretenders to the throne in the U.S., Canada, and most of the countries of Europe. You infringe one of the Mouse's copyright, the Mouse is on it.

But Disney is the Big Dog in those situations. But in China, not so much. So how this lawsuit comes out is known but to God and the People's Republic.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Rough Draft Studios and the Animation Guild have reached an agreement for a multi-year deal covering animated features and television series created by the studio.

Glendale-based Rough Draft is best known for work on “Futurama” and “The Simpsons Movie” along with a variety of animated television shows and commercials. Its sister studio Rough Draft Studios (Korea) has been the production facility for “The Simpsons” for over two decades along with working for Paramount Pictures, Walt Disney Television Animation and Warner Bros.

Rough Draft previously had a contract with the Animation Guild for work on 2007’s “The Simpsons Movie” but that deal had lapsed. ...

This deal took a bit of time to come together, but when the studio signaled a willingness to sit down and work out an agreement, talks moved along quickly.

We believe this new contract will be beneficial for Rough Draft and the writers, board artists, designers and everyone else who will work under it. Animation has been on a growth trajectory, and there will now be more Guild jobs on more productions in Los Angeles county.

Another of the Guild's Golden Awards interviews from the mid 1980s, this one with veteran animator George "Nick" Nicholas, (who's not to be confused with his one-time Disney mentor Charles "Nick" Nichols, a different artist entirely.)

George Nicholas's career started at Walter Lantz's shop but soon landed him at Disney. ...

And I was struck by similarities between George N.'s and Don Lusk's early and middle careers:

Like Don, George was a pre-war Mouse House animator. Also like Don, George hit the bricks in front of the Burbank studio during the Disney strike of 1941. He and Don were laid off from Walt Disney Productions around the same time, George at the end of Sleeping Beauty, Don toward the end of 101 Dalmations.

Don Lusk told me during the linked interview above that he ended up on Walt's "Employees I Want Gone" list because of his strike activity. And it set me wondering if George Nicholas ended up on the same roster on which Mr. Lusk found himself. At this remove, I doubt that we'll ever know for certain, but it's something to ponder.

Rega4rdless, Mr. Nicholas went on to a long and prosperous career at other animation studios. He passed away a couple of years after retiring, age 81.

Dory beats previous toon Tuesday record-holder Minions ($16.8M). Disney’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens owns the best Tuesday B.O. record with $37.4M. This weekend, Dory is poised to hold on to her top spot at the weekend box office with a $60M second weekend, beating 20th Century Fox’s big summer sequel Independence Day: Resurgence which is looking to gross between $45M-$52M. ...

And there's plenty of other animated features rolling down up-country pike.

The Secret Life of Pets (Illumination Entertainment-Universal) receives a wide release on July 8th, and Ice Age: Collision Course (Blue Sky Studios-Fox) launches on July 22nd.

There are a poopload of long-form cartoons being rolled out globally in 2016, and why would that be surprising? Long-form cartoons make buckets of money.

Besides the two features named above, there will be Kubo and the Two Strings (Laika) August 19th, Storks (Warners) on September 23rd, then Trolls and Moana in November and a thundering herd of product in 2017.

Soon we will get to see the cannibalizing each other!! theory in action. Or not.

... Aardman is the indisputable leader of the pack when it comes to British animation, the chief, the king, the tip-top company. Morph, Wallace and Gromit, Flushed Away and Chicken Run are as close as the Brits have ever come to producing cartoons - both shorts and features - that have competed on equal terms with the work of Disney and Pixar.

Their movies have been backed by Dreamworks and Sony and have made hundreds of millions of dollars at the British box office. Nonetheless, Sproxton and Lord still speak about their company as if it is a small British family business, a bit like Morgan Motor Cars.

Work is now well underway on Nick Park’s next animated feature, the prehistoric comedy Early Man (which will be released in 2018). According to Aardman bosses [Peter Lord and David Sproxton], it was an almighty struggle to get the film financed, even with Eddie Redmayne leading the voice cast and a budget less than half of that of the average Pixar or Disney blockbuster.

“I have no complaints about the business at all. I love it,” Lord says but adds that the perception the Aardman founders are “rolling around in great pots of gold” is not true at all. They still have to hustle to put together their movies. “We can’t just say we want X million.”

It's a good thing that Sproxton and Lord are receiving the Annecy "Personality of the Year" award. Their imprint on British animation has been (and is) profound. Why many of their movies haven't been larger global hits is a myster somebody else can unravel, because I've got no idea.

Perhaps British comedy doesn't travel as well as it once did. I mean, Charlie Chaplin was a worldwide smash, so some things must have changed.

... the Feds greenlit the Comcast-DreamWorks Animation merger on Tuesday:

NBCUniversal confirms that the Department of Justice cleared the acquisition of DreamWorks Animation. The $3.8B deal is expected to close within a few months following the regulatory green light.

DreamWorks closed at $40.78 yesterday, still a bit short than the deal price of $41. ...

THe deal will close out toward the end of the year. No legal minds that I talked to believed that the merger would have much trouble going through the regulatory process, although a few members voiced apprehension about it.

Most everybody within earshot who's voiced an opinion believes the marriage between conglomerate and cartoon studio is a positive development, since it stabilizes DWA and insures DreamWorks long-term viability.

NBCUniversal will likely step up development of television and theatrical projects, and exploit DreamWorks Animation's catalogue in the Disney manner.

Finding Dory, continues its winning ways (even though the weekend is over).

After posting the biggest opening of all-time for an animated movie with $135.06M, the 17th Disney/Pixar title [Finding Dory] raked in an estimated $19.9M yesterday according to early morning industry reports.

That figure is easily the best Monday for a Disney/Pixar movie beating 2010’s Toy Story 3‘s $15.6M, and the best Monday in June for a feature toon. Among all animated movies, Dory hooked the second best Monday ever after DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek 2 which cashed in $23.4M on Memorial Day 2004.

Through four days, Finding Dory counts just under $155M at the domestic B.O. The film at 4,305 theaters is the widest Pixar release ever. ...

A lot of experts (so-called) give opinions on "sequelitis", and how sequels don't work so well anymore, and aren't sure-fire money-makers, and blah de blah.

But really. All the sequel of a hit gives you is name-recognition and some marginal "want to see" poker chips that people may or may not cash in. If the sequel underwhelms in the entertainment department (in other words, it reeks), word will rapidly get around and audiences will stay away from the thing in droves.

"Sequelitis" and "cannibalization" (my other favorite one-word explanation about why an animated feature isn't doing well) have little to do with it. The quality of the movie has most everything to do with it. Funny how that works.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Sony Pictures/Sony Pictures Animation has a multitude of projects lined up on the tarmac:

Sony Pictures Animation has drawn up plans for its 2017-18 slate, setting release dates for Hotel Transylvania 3, its animated Spider-Man feature, the first fully animated Smurfs movie and the newly titled original pics Emoji movie: Express Yourself and The Star. The toon studio also is crossing streams on a just-announced Ghostbusters: Ecto Force TV show, along with other series based on the Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania movie franchises.

The announcements spotlight SPA’s increased year-round production across multiple platforms. “We are meaningfully stepping up our level of production, while creating an environment that fosters the best talent,” said Kristine Belson, President of Sony Pictures Animation. “Our goal is to enlarge our presence in the animation landscape with a uniquely diverse slate, and our strategy to get there is to let artists drive the movies creatively.” ...

Sony is an interesting corporation, animation-wise.

Back in the 1990s, Sony launched a TV animation unit named Sony Adelaide, and for a brief while it was one of the largest television cartoon studios in Southern California. It started in a small building and then moved to a larger building, and then to TWO buildings. For a while there, the studio was firing on all cylinders, but Sony didn't own any distribution outlets, and eventually the high trajectory came back to earth.

Around the time Adelaide was fading away, Sony Pictures Animation (SPA) came into existence. Its mission was to create high-end theatrical animation that would compete with Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks Animation. The launch of the studio was promising, but several pictures didn't perform, upper Sony management changed SPA executives, and nothing seemed to work. (One example: Surf's Up, which garnered favorable reviews, failed to perform at the world box office. Turns out you can't be the third or fourth penguin picture out of the gate and expect to do gangbuster business.)

Of late, however, Sony Pictures Animation has found firmer footing. Hotel Transylvania 2 grossed $468 million on an $80 million budget (free Canadian money was a big help) and the division now appears to have a vision of where it's going. This is good news for Sony, and good news for animation in general.

In the first major post-acquisition synergy move between NBCUniversal and DreamWorks Animation, NBCU Cable Entertainment’s preschool channel Sprout has picked up Noddy Toyland Detective, DWA’s first original preschool series. Sprout will be the U.S. distributor of the CG-animated series, co-produced by DWA and Gaumont Animation, which was originally made for France Télévisions’ France 5. ...

Even though the deal won't be finalized until the end of the year, it makes sense that the boys and girls at Comcast-Universal want to steer a little of that DWA-tv magic to their wallets rather than Netflix's. ...

Comcast hopes to breathe new life into Shrek and crank out as many as four animated movies a year following its acquisition of DreamWorks Animation, NBCUniversal chief Steve Burke [said]. told an investor gathering today.

The goal is to create characters that will lead to theme park attractions and licensed merchandise to take “the low-single digit returns of the movie business and turn it into a different kind of business.” ...

What Diz Co.'s Robert Iger has been doing for the past decade, gobbling up various entertainment brands (Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfulm) and turning their intellectual property into ATMs that vomit money has not escaped the notice of NBCUniversal. And clearly NBCUniversal is looking to replicate the Walt Disney Company's massive success with other brands.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

One of our fine trade papers gets nasty with its review of an upcoming animated feature of a long-running and well-lovied series:

The “Ice Age” movies are so utterly featureless and interchangeable that if Fox reissued an old one under a new title, it’s quite possible that no one would notice. “Collision Course” offers an argument for extinction that even environmentalists could support. ...

And so the unspoken question hangs in the still Arctic air: Why make a sequel at all?

Welll. There's multiple answers to that query. I'll share them with you below. ...

In 2002, the first Ice Age was released, and grossed $383,257,136. It took in almost 6 1/2 times its production cost of $59 million, and the studio was pleasantly surprised. Fox had been trying to sell its whooly-owned Blue Sky studio to the highest bidder only months before. (It quickly changed its corporate mind).

In 2006, the next installment was released, and collected $660,940,780 against a budget of $80 million. If you've got your pocket calculator out, this is more than eight times the movie's production cost.

Okay, so now we're up to 2009, wherein the third Ice Age gets released. This one's sub-titled "The Dawn of Dinosaurs" and carries a price tag of $90 million. World wide gross? $886,686,817 (This is a shade under ten times the movie's production cost.)

And then we arrive at 2012, and the release of Ice Age #4. And whattayaknow? This one does less well than its immediate predecessor. $9.5 million less well.

The feature pulls in a paltry $877,244,782 while costing $95 million to make. (9.23 times its production cost).

I'll let you, constant reader, puzzle this one out for yourself. Why do you think Fox/News Corp. is rolling out the fifth ... and likely far from last ... Ice Age?

(You won't need more than eight seconds to tee up an answer). ...

Rotten tomatoes hasn't rated the flick yet, but here's a short compilation of early reviews. Full disclosure: I haven't seen ALL the "Ice Age" movies, but the ones I have watched have been highly entertaining.

Finding Dory has launched well overseas, though it hasn't yet launched wide.

Will Disney have two back-to-back billion dollar animated features in 2016? Three if you count Jungle Book? (And we do).

Meantime, Angry Birds will clearly be in the black ... if it isn't already ... and Zootopia still have some life in it as it continues to triumph in Japan and finished up in a few smaller markets.

Happily, there is no signs of cannibalism in Cartoonland, but you never know. Any week now, one animated feature will gobble up another animated feature. Isn't that what the trade press tells us?Click here to read entire post

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Following its critically-acclaimed world premiere at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, Claude Barras’s French stop-motion feature “My Life as a Courgette” scooped the audience prize and the Crystal award for best animated feature at the 40th Annecy Intl. Animation Film Festival.

Written by sceenwriter/director Celine Sciamma (“Girlhood,””Tomboy”) and based on a novel, “Courgette” is about an orphan trying to adapt to life in a group home.

The film has been sold by Indie Sales in most key territories. A U.S. deal is in advanced negotiations. Gebeka Films will release “Courgette” in France. ...

As The Reporter notes:

... >Courgette either sinks or soars based on how involved viewers will become in the story [of a shy, 9-year-old boy coming to live at an orphanage].

Given that there’s a lot of offscreen hurt for many of the preteen characters but that their faces are made of plasticine, what [Courgett's director Claude] Barras has achieved here is nothing short of a miracle. ...

Friday, June 17, 2016

Warner Bros had excellent results with the first Lego Movie, so it must be somewhat painful to push the second one to a later date:

Warner Bros. has reportedly pushed the release date of “Lego Movie 2” back to 2019. There’s no explanation why the sequel to the 2014 hit is moving from May 18, 2018 to February 8, 2019. ...

No explanation the WB is willing to hand to the public, anyway.

Please know that I have no firm idea about why the company is moving the release date of a well-loved title back nine-plus months, because I have no underlying evidence. The Warner Animation Group has two development facilities for upcoming features, one on the Warners lot in Burban and one at a facility on the other side of the Hollywood Hills near Melrose Avenue.

Both groups are working on a myriad of projects, a number being upcoming titles in the Lego franchise. Nobody has hinted at any troubles, but I do know the development artists work long weeks on challenging schedules.

So why the move to 1919? When a commercial movie is moved back a few months, it's usually because the releasing company is seeking the right release window. When it's moved back the better part of a year, but usually because there are story issues. Think Toy Story 2. Think The Good Dinosaur. The division creating the feature wants to make sure the movie is as good as it can be, and has determined that it needs to be better than it presently is.

So what is it? The story and characters need to be improved. You don't have to know anything specific about the production to understand those are probably what the issues are.

... Sequences [of Moana] screened at Annecy, some of which were nearly complete and others at storyboard or early animation stages, included an opening that explains the myth behind Moana’s predicament and a scene where she uncovers the secret of her tribe. Another beautifully rendered sequence shows an infant Moana stepping into the sea for the first time, with the Disney team doing wonders to make the ocean a character in and of itself. (Water has always been one of the toughest things to animate, and its clear that Clements and Musker went, um, overboard to make the Pacific come alive.) ...

The water scene is the one I watched at Tujunga. And The Reporter isn't exaggerating; the water is a character, whirling, rearing up and interacting with the young Moana.

The other element that grabbed me was the quality of light in every scene of the picture I've seen. The skies are the kind if deep, tropical blue you encounter in South Florida and Hawaii, and the water has a crystalline clarity to it.

Oh. And the characters seem to be pretty good, too. Entertaining, you know?

Thursday night was a good night for Finding Dory, which hauled in $9.2 million, a record Thursday preview number for an animated film.

Minions held the previous record with $6.2 million before opening with $115.7 million just last year, the second highest opening for an animated film behind 2007's Shrek the Third ($121.6m). At this point it's looking like the record is in the bag. ...

This only goes to show that, even though more animated features are being released than ever, we have not yet reached the "cannibalization" threshold.

Of course, the meme that too many animated features in the marketplace devour each other is flapdoodle, and always has been. Animation doesn't perform for the same reason live-action doesn't perform: nobody wants to go see pictures that don't engage audiences.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Italy is forging closer ties with France in the field of animation production, seeking to tap into the expertise of continental Europe’s leader in this sector and set up some co-productions.

The Rome/Lazio Film Commission has signed a collaboration agreement with prominent French toon production hub Pole Image Magelis, which comprises four studios, 11 schools and a substantial fund.

“France is a leader in this sector — the only European country that can stand up to Hollywood. We have a lot to learn from them,” said Luciano Sovena, president of the Rome/Lazio Film Commission, who brokered the agreement.

Under the pact, Italian animators will be able to acquire French know-how through hands-on experience at Magelis, while the more long-term goal is to set up co-productions with France tapping into incentives in both countries. ...

Italy throwing in with the French makes sense.

France has world-renowned schools training young artists in animation. And it's the only country that goes toe to toe with the U.S. in long-form animation and is actually competitive. Illumination Entertainment has used the Paris studio MacGuff for years, creating the Despicable Me and Minions franchises, earning Universal and IE hundreds of millions of dollars.

In the realm of high-grossing, ninety-minute cartoons, there is France, there is the United States, and that's pretty much it.

Change, as it often does, is roiling various movie studios. Fox will be changing captains:

Media giant 21st Century Fox is replacing the longtime chief of its movie studio, marking the latest move by Chief Executive James Murdoch and Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch to put their stamp on the company.

Twentieth Century Fox Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Gianopulos will step down from his post next year after working at the company for a quarter of a century ... Gianopulos, 64, will relinquish his position in June 2017 after his contract expires, the company said. He will then take on a “new strategic role,” though details of that position were not disclosed.

The elevation of Snider, 55, comes after Fox acknowledged earlier this month that as many as 400 employees of the movie studio and TV operations would exit after receiving lucrative buyouts offered to longtime staff members, with the aim of cutting $250 million in costs. The workforce reduction included the departure of many on Gianopulos’ team at the Century City studio. ...

This is called "sweeping with a wide broom". The studio head's staffers get the axe (and or "lucrative buyouts"), then the studio head is flung overboard.

In recent years, Fox has been a big player in animation. It continues to have prime time animation in its Sunday block of shows, and it release DreamWorks product theatrically along with wholly-owned Blue Sky Studio's features. The company will be losing distribution on DWA's movies in 2018, so what it will do to ramp up the number of animated features it rolls out is anybody's guess.

Perhaps, emulating Disney, it will start a second animated feature division, but I tend to doubt it. The Mouse owning two power-house theatrical animation units is an accident of circumstances more than anything else. The House of Murdoch is more likely to beef up its East coast cartoon studio rather than open a second name plate.

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

A major overhaul of the French support system for TV animation – including an upgrade to the CNC’s automatic subsidy support system and a new 25% tax rebate for TV production – has encouraged a clutch of Gallic animation producers to open new production studios in France.

The dynamic cluster of French independent animation producers are also increasingly attracting partnerships and investors from Hollywood and Asia, a trend that began in film, with joint ventures such as Universal’s Illumination Mac Guff, launched in 2011, and which is now extending to TV animation.

To date, such team-ups have been agreed on a project-by-project basis – such as TeamTO’s production of series “Sofia The First,” for Disney Television Animation, supported by France’s Tax Rebate for International Production, a tax rebate scheme for foreign movies or TV series made in France. ...

In the middle of another political season, we hear lots of yammering about "the evils of socialism!" (You know, precious tax-payer money being paid to various undeserving deadbeats, who suckle at the government teat. "Welfare queens").

Of course, nobody is ever going to talk about our fine, international conglomerates, that never met a cash handout they didn't like, as "welfare queens," but that's what they are. Welfare queens with leverage.

Disney and Warners and all the rest of the big entertainment companies can go to Canada or France or the United Kingdom for their baskets of Free Money, they just have to sort out which bed partner they like the best, then smile pretty with a come-hither look. And the dollars, francs and pound notes will flutter down on them like the white flakes of a Christmastime snowfall.

... Animated filmmaking is a much different beast than traditional live-action. ... With animation, it ... often starts with the concept. ...

[A]nimated stories will always start with the visuals and concepts first. The screenplay is often drastically changed, more so than in live-action script development. ...

Well, yes and no. ...

Earlier animated features (Pinocchio, Dumbo, etc.) were visual and conceptual because they lived and died via storyboards.

In the beginning, there was an animated feature roiling around inside Walt Disney's head; that story was made real via the visual art of storyboarding. That made them visual in ways that live-action films (and we're talking live-action films with sound) never were, because those movies started with descriptive narrative and dialogue on a white sheet of paper, not visual presentations pinned to a cork board.

The "early Disney" style of story construction held sway until live-action oriented execs named Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg took over Disney Feature Animation and the written word began to dominate. ("I don't get storyboards," Michael Eisner said in his first years at Disney. "I relate to scripts.")

In the years since, storyboard artists have pulled animated features back toward their roots, but I still see feature board artists at their Cintiqs "waiting for new script pages." John Lasseter, of course, came out of the visual side of animation, so it stands to reason that concepts and visuals are important with Disney and Pixar animated features *.

* The above refers to theatrical animated features. In television, scripted half hours have dominated for decades, though even in television, a number of series are "board driven", with artists given a premise or outline, and then writing aid visualizing the show on tv production boards.

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

This afternoon I was back at Disney's Tujunga Studio, going through the first floor (animation, character technical directors) of the Mouse's sprawling production facility for its big Fall release. (A guard at the gate said: Weren't you just here?", I replied: "Yeah. But I'm old, I don't get around like I used to. So I need two days to accomplish what I once did in one.") ...

In the big common area, there was a long sequence of Moana on a big screen, playing on a loop. The water, tropical light and character animation inside it were outstanding, and based on this clip and the animation snippets have playing on their computers, the picture is going to be another major money-maker.

Right now, however, the staff is deep into production:

"We've been doing fifty-five hour weeks, but we can handle that. I don't think the number of hours are going to get heavier because the studio has hired a lot of people to help get the movie out. It's when you get up to seventy and eighty-hour weeks that things get tough. I don't think that's going to happen with Moana." ...

Another animator wanted to know if the Tujunga Building was "the dumpiest" studio site I visited, because it was the dumpiest for him. I allowed as how the Disney Sonora building gave Tujunga a close run for its money back when there was major renovations on the second floor (complete with jack hammer sound effects) and plaster dust fell on Disney Television Animation employees on the first floor like summer rain.

Finally, some tech directors asked me about the costs of the Guild's 401(k) Plan (the John Oliver segment about investing on Last Week Tonight has made members aware of expenses. Other staffers wanted to know the mechanics of the Motion Picture Industry Pension and Health Plan.

Okay, we had an animated remake of an animated original in The Jungle Book. Now we get a live-action with animation remake of a live-action with animation original.

I do believe that the House of Mouse is convinced that it's on to a good thing ...

The first Pete's was shot on the Disney backlot and sound stages, went north along the California coast for some location work, spent a long time in post as most of the animation staff animated the Ken Anderson designed dragon, and got premiered at the Radio City Music Hall in late 1977.

The picture, as I remember, did not set the box office record books afire.

But now, 39 years later, a new iteration of Pete's Dragon is slated for release. The cartoon dragon is out, a sleek CG dragon is in, and we get to see if Diz Co.'s rebooting of another chestnut ... a little more serious, a little less of the singing and dancing ... will mint the company additional box office gold.

... Finding Dory is poised to open between $100M-$115M. That three-day opening would make Finding Dory the second best debut this summer after Disney Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War ($179.1M). That Russo Brothers-directed movie is set to cross $400M on Friday, becoming the first title to do so this year.

While Civil War will be the highest grossing live-action film this summer, there’s some camps who believe that Finding Dory could take the crown as the highest grossing title overall for the May-Labor Day 2016 period. ... Even though Finding Dory is tracking slightly better with girls than boys, it’s the highest figures ever seen for a Pixar movie in all demos. ...

Animated features have been on a roll of late, Disney features in particular. If Finding Dory's performance matches predictions, the Mouse will have two back-to-back animated blockbusters.

We must be way below "the cartoons are cannibalizing each other!" metric. Or else we need a lot more animated features released before the cannibalization commences.

Monday, June 13, 2016

Janet Waldo, a voice-over actress who played sprightly teenagers for decades on popular cartoon shows, most notably “The Jetsons,” died on Sunday at her home in Encino, Calif. She was 96.

The television historian Stu Shostak, a friend, said the cause was an inoperable brain tumor.

Ms. Waldo broke through as the title character on “Meet Corliss Archer,” a CBS radio show about a girl next door that ran from the early 1940s until the mid-1950s.

In 1962 Ms. Waldo landed her first, and most enduring, animation role. She played Judy Jetson, the teenage daughter on “The Jetsons,” Hanna-Barbera’s futuristic answer to “The Flintstones.” The show initially lasted only one season; those episodes ran in syndication until new ones were made beginning in 1985. ...

Voice actors keep working longer than most thespians.

Ms. Waldo's career lasted longer than most, but she kept her pipes well-maintained, and it made her career. Rest in Peace.

John Oliver explains why investors have to watch what they get charged ... with retirement plans or "financial advisors".

The Guild now has something around 2500 participants in the Animation Guild 401(k) Plan. Over the years, we've hammered down costs until expenses are minimal. (This took awhile).

Mr. Oliver tells how the staff of his own show got kicked in the backside with costs from their own 401(k) Plan, and how because of the high expenses, they left their original provider (John Hancock) and went elsewhere.

Smart thing to do.

But the entire twenty minutes is well worth watching. Investing isn't hard in concept. The difficulties lie in execution. Because participants/investors tend to bail out of investments heading south at exactly the wrong time, thereby locking in money losses and causing themselves heartache and sorrow further down the road.

Lavelle Haines Howard and Celine Miles Marcus were among the "foot soldiers" of the early animation industry. They both performed important work on the back slopes of animation production; both were relatively unknown (although Celine had her own company and owned a wee bit more name recognition.)

Lavelle entered the business in the mid-thirties and for many years alternated between hoofing at Universal and working in various ink-and-paint departments at different cartoon studios.

After breaking in at Schlesinger's during the Depression, Celine worked at a variety of cartoon facilities not named Disney before opening her own ink-and-apint service, which she ran for almost a quarter century. Ms. Marcus retired in 1979.

Sunday, June 12, 2016

At one time, Moana was going to involve a lot of the hand-drawn crew, and a lot of the characters were going to have traditional animation underpinnings with CG overlays. (Several animators ... a couple years back ... showed me the work).

But then the picture took a turn toward CG, as Ron Clements explained to Entertainment Weekly:

... “We still love hand-drawn animation very much, but for the depth and scope of this movie when we’re dealing with mythic islands that come to life and the ocean, digital animation really seemed appropriate for this story.” ...

Pictures evolve, sometimes for years. Now Eric Goldberg is in charge of the hand-drawn animation of the big God's tattoos ... and that's most of traditional animation inside the picture.

And then of course, there are the commercial considerations. Walt Disney Animation Studios is, after all, a subsidiary of a large entertainment conglomerate that seeks to keep stockholders content.

... Zootopia posted $3.1M in its 18th weekend of overseas release from 16 material territories. The box office on the Disney charmer continues to be driven by Japan which was its last major release market. ...

[The Angry Birds Movie] has flown past $200M internationally with a cume of $213.9M off of a $10.4M weekend. Sony’s take on the Rovio mobile franchise also became the 4th highest-grossing U.S. animated film of all time in China as it comes in for a landing there with a total $72M. ...

With $14.6M in its 3rd offshore weekend, Alice Through The Looking Glass is looking at an international cume of $151M for a worldwide take of $213.4M. Playing in 44 markets, the Disney pic is led by China with $55.7M. ...

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pulled in $13.3M overseas in 44 overseas markets. There were four additional openings, although the total fell by 60% from last weekend’s debut. ...

Warcraft added $29.8M this frame. It has thus far opened No. 1 in 45 and has a Uni cume of $105.7M. Combined with China, the international total is $261.7M and the worldwide cume is $286.1M. ...

And on and on. Lots of pure animation, a generous dollops of mocap, and of course animated CG visual effects are a large part of the international movie landscape. You want to be a high-performing motion picture here in the 21st century, you better plan to have lots of visual effects sprinkled throoughout your movie.)

Saturday, June 11, 2016

The rise and fall of Disney video games as interpreted by the MiceChat blog:

... Disney Interactive, never seemed to have complete confidence from the parent company. They were never given autonomous creative control, nor were they ever run by a person that truly understood gaming and the gaming market. Most gamers could tell that the studio existed for the most part to try and wring money out of the gaming industry. Their titles were often lackluster and existed mainly to translate films or television shows into game form. ...

Disney announced that Mickey Mouse was back and he was going to become a star of a new franchise. Epic Mickey, released in 2010, was watched with great anticipation from audiences and editors alike. ... It was announced that Warren Spector would produce the title. He had produced, if not co-produced some of the most critically acclaimed PC titles including Ultima VI, Wing Commander, Deus: Ex and System Shock, Almost from the get-go Spector was hampered by mandates from the head office.

Epic Mickey would push a dystopian version of Disneyland and try to re-introduce Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back into the public consciousness. His team at Junction Point studio did their best best with the mandate. An awkward control scheme and a single platform release made it a flop in the eyes of the industry. Undoing all of the missteps in Epic Mickey 2 was too little too late.

Spector was dismissed and Junction Point was closed down. Spector was a passionate Disney fan and knew much more about the company and its history than any other producer the studio ever had. Word was that his outspokenness and challenging the direction of the studio had rubbed a few executives the wrong way. Instead of recognizing that he was the talent that the company was sorely lacking, the Shigeru Miyamoto they never had, the company let him go. ...

Disney never became fully invested in doing the interactive games thing.

If you hire a top talent in the game sector, it's always useful to let him run with the things he does best. (The main lot doesn't micro-manage John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, after all. Sure, they give notes and other input, but Diz Co. is not timid about investing in bi-screen animation, and they're not inclined to second-guess the division's leaders).

This doesn't appear to be the case with Disney Interactive. Upper management never ceased second-guessing the division's creative heads. Instead the Walt Disney Co. over-analyzed product, became overly paranoid, and continually changed creative direction, yanking the chain of whoever sat in the driver's seat of Disney Interactive.

From street level, the reversals were continually on view. You don't give staff long-term Personal Service Contracts and then, months later, attempt to weasel out of them if you know what the freak you're doing. But that's what Disney Interactive did a few years ago.

The confidence to tackle the game medium and hang in there until results were in evidence wasn't there. And the division, through several incarnations, never found it's creative footing ... or a clear reason for being.

The chronology of what happened following Epic Mickey.

October 2012, Disney Interactive Media Group had 15 consecutive quarters of losses totaling $977 million

January 2013, Avalanche Software, one of the developers for Disney Interactive Games unveiled the cross platform game Disney Infinity

October 2013, Disney Interactive posted a profit of $16 million during the September Quarter.

March 2014, Disney Interactive laid off 700 people, 1/4 of its staff. And merged its mobile and social game units.

June 2015, Disney Interactive merged with Disney Consumer Products

May 2016, Disney Interactive discontinued Disney Infinity and closed down the developers at Avalanche Software due to lack of growth in the toy-to-game market. ...

And so now it's finito to the interactive game division birthed ... and then strangled in its crib ... by the Walt Disney Company.

Angry Birds and The Jungle Book have relatively strong holds week over week. TJB now has a $350 million accumulation and The Angry Birds Movie is nudging up against the $100 million mark. Meantime, Alice 2 is going pretty much nowhere, box office-wise.

Zootopia, still in a couple of hundred theaters, has now collected $337,641,519 at the domestic b.o. and owns $1,001,141,519 worldwide.

Kung Fu Panda 3, in less than a hundred theaters nationwide, has grossed $143,482,345 domestically. Globally it's made $518,314,410 after nineteen weeks of release.

Friday, June 10, 2016

... Warcraft jumped off to a strong start on Thursday evening, hauling in $3.1 million in late night shows in 2,632 theaters, which began at 7:00 PM. It's a number that immediately causes some second guessing based on early estimates. ...

[The movie] currently carryies a 21% RottenTomatoes rating, so one would expect the anticipated $22-25 million domestic opening weekend for the video game adaptation to be a sign of doom and gloom, and while it's nothing to celebrate, the film's performance internationally so far is quite impressive.

In China, Warcraft has already amassed a record $90+ million bringing the international gross-to-date to $168.8 million. The film is also performing well in Russia, France and Germany with openings in 20 more territories this weekend. ...

The trade press has not been kind, informing us it's a movie designed for nerds:

... “Warcraft” is a movie that assumes you understand all the nerdy concepts it’s pitching you before you watch it. It tosses you headfirst into a world full of hulking CGI green people with vague motivations … and humans with vague motivations … and magic people with vague motivations.

But these motivations are only vague in the movie — the factions and magical concepts and conflict we see in “Warcraft” are well established elsewhere. But if you come into “Warcraft” ignorant of what the Horde or the Alliance or Aezeroth or Fel magic are, you’ll be lost because the movie certainly doesn’t bother to explain them. ...

The Middle Kingdom didn't need long-winded explanations. And it appears that the audience in the U.S. of A. might not need clarity either, because the movie is opening above expectations. So what the hey. Maybe gamers can open a movie, particularly one that they like.

Nineteen projects from international studios are being developed in [France], including seven from the U.S. The studios are taking advantage of the recent laws passed that offer government tax rebates for film and television projects. ...

DreamWorks’ Captain Underpants, joint Paramount and MGM project Sherlock Gnomes, and Disney TV series Elena de Avalor have all applied and been approved for tax breaks, confirmed Film France.

Marvel Animation is also on the list of international productions with two new shorts in development, Ant-Man and Rocket and Groot. French directing team Ugo Bienvenu and Kevin Manach will be handling duties for Ant-Man while Arnaud Delord will be working on Rocket and Groot. ...

While these aren’t the first U.S.-based projects to move their operations overseas, it’s another indicator that France is quietly becoming a destination powerhouse for production.

Never let it be said that good old American free-market system, and the boys and girls that control it, aren't willing to open the Socialist spigot and drink deeply when the opportunity arises. We are now locked in a global battle to see which state and/or national government can throw the most tax dollars at our fine, entertainment conglomerates to entice them to set up shop in their geographical area.

Remember the old days? When companies had to spend their own money to create family and adult entertainment? Those times are rapidly coming to an end almost everywhere. Even the Golden state has gotten into the movie bribery business with tax subsidies of its own. My sorrow is that the subsidies only encompass animated visual effects for live-action, and not undiluted animation itself.

And California only subsidizes work that has left the state but returned for the subsidies. That cuts feature animation out of the mix, along with various forms of live-action like three-camera television comedies. No doubt the parameters will change when the tax bill comes up for renewal in another two years.

Thursday, June 09, 2016

Walking around Walt Disney Animation Studios ... out at the end of the main runway of Bob Hope/Burbank Airport ... everybody was busy working on Moana. ...

Layout is pretty well finished on the picture (at least that's what people in the layout department said), and the animation department has been doing overtime for a couple of months. A veteran of the lighting department related:

... "We haven't gotten into working extra days in the week yet, but we're doing some extra hours and the tempo will be picking up soon. I expect a few months of six day weeks, that's how it usually goes. We're scheduled to be done in the Fall." ...

Moana gets released at Thanksgiving.

I was lucky enough to see some clips and setups on different flat screens. The visuals are out-freaking-standing. I don't know how they capture tropical skies and tropical sunlight so well, but they do it with style.

Most every sequence, I'm told, is into production. And Dwayne Johnson, being a busy guy, records from wherever he happens to be. In the recent past, that allegedly was Miami, located in Florida. No dull Burbank recording stage for the Rock!

... If The Walt Disney Company and DreamWorks Animation get their way in a new move made on Thursday, workers who have been denied better job opportunities because of long-ago collusive behavior could find it more difficult to organize a class action antitrust lawsuit.

The companies as well as their subsidiaries are presently facing legal action over agreements made with each other not to poach workers in the animation industry. These pacts were six years ago the subject of a Justice Department investigation, a settlement with the government and many follow-up civil lawsuits. Late last month, U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh agreed to certify a class action (with some caveats) over antitrust claims between 2004 and 2010 with the potential for a trial where Disney and DreamWorks could face damages in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. ...

Disney and DreamWorks say that "many class members here had actual knowledge of their claims years before this action was filed is no mere hypothetical, as the alleged conspiracy was openly discussed in an extraordinary record of meetings, blog posts, and emails." ...

When I was deposed by the studios on this case a while back, the lawyers on the plaintiffs' side thought the companies' lawyers were working to establish that Biz Rep Hulett (or somebody) knew about the collusion years ago. What I knew was rumors, innuendos and speculation a short time before the case got underway.

If some studios are now settling (and some are), then there must be some feeling of impending jeopardy among our fine, entertainment conglomerates, no?

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

I'm so old I remember when these strange creatures were hand-drawn. And mo-cap was but a fever dream.

Not that the latest turtles movie is a runaway hit, but one thing about motion capture is increasingly clear. A movie with 100% mo-cap is seldom embraced by movie-goers. A Christmas Carol and other Zemeckis motion capture features (with the possible exception of The Polar Express) fell flat at the box office.

But mo-cap combined with live-action? That's an Avatar of a different color. The public likes it, mostly because the uncanny valley is less in evidence. There's something real on which eyeballs can glom. And audiences are lots more comfortable watching digitally constructed actors who often seem like glassy-eyed zombies pulled from a psycho's basement lab when they are paired with Sigourny Weaver.

Such has been the case with the Planet of the Apes features (partial mo-cap), while total mo-cap motion pictures such as Spielberg's Tin-tin have fallen on their computer-generated faces.

... Jerry Seinfeld revealed that there’s an incredible demand online for him to make a sequel to 2007’s Bee Movie:

There's a fantastic energy now for some reason, on the Internet particularly. Tumblr, people brought my attention to. I actually did consider it, but then I realized it would make Bee Movie 1 less iconic. But my kids want me to do it; a lot of people want me to do it. A lot of people that don't know what animation is want me to do it. If you have any idea what animation is, you'd never do it. ...

I'm not totally sure how sky-high the demand for Bee Movie 2 actually is. Because let's face it: Bee Movie Uno did not exactly set the world box office afire. The DreamWorks production made a mere $287,594,577 around the globe during its late 2007 release.

And I'm not sure how much of an icon Jerry's animated opus turned out to be. It was underloved by the critics, and DreamWorks staffers at the time related that they didn't find Jerry to be the easiest or kindest of collaborators.

But so what if somebody's bristly? Or a bit brusque? If the picture turns out well, it doesn't matter, right?

Sadly, Bee Movie was one of DWA's lesser films during its run of hits. From what the crew related, Mr. Seinfeld learned a lot about what works in animation and what doesn't during the making of the movie. But by the time he got educated, most of the picture was done.

Me, I think a second Jerry Seinfeld animated feature would be superior to the first, because Mr. S. is a smart man who learns from his missteps. But it doesn't sound like the man has much interest in spending 2-3 years of his life making a second animated movie.

Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Russell Hicks, an 18-year Nickelodeon veteran, has stepped down as President, Content Development and Production for the Nickelodeon Group. I hear his resignation, which is expected to be announced internally tomorrow, came soon after he’d returned from a four-month medical leave. There are no plans for him to be replaced at this time.

RelatedViacom CEO Says Talks To Sell Paramount Stake "On Track" To Wrap In June
“Russell Hicks has decided to step down from his position effective immediately,” a rep for Nickelodeon confirmed to Deadline, declining further comment. ...

We've heard for a while now that Russell was leaving Nick. In fact, employees said that he wasn't leaving, but had left. Russell, per Nick staff, hadn't been in the building for a bit, though he was still on salary.

So farewell, Mr. Hicks, Nickelodeon will be a different animal without you.

The existence of the animated "Justice League Dark" was revealed by the British Board of Film Classification, which stated that the upcoming Batman: The Killing Joke animated home release will contain a bonus feature titled "A Sneak Peak at Justice League Dark." Such features are a regular occurrence on DC's animated releases, acting as announcement and teaser for the next release from the animation studio.

Del Toro's live-action JLD — also known as Dark Universe — was first mentioned in 2013 as a project that would team John Constantine, Swamp Thing, Zatanna and other supernatural characters in DC's portfolio against an unknown threat. Last year, the Pacific Rim director said that he may not be involved beyond scripting, however: "It all depends on the calendar, you know?" he explained.

"Justice League Dark" launched as a comic book property in 2011, featuring a number of DC's supernatural and horror characters — including the Enchantress, who appears in August's Suicide Squad movie. ...

One thing that Warner Bros. Animation knows how to do well is make super hero sagas. They have a dedicated creative staff that knows how to do good work, and they execute.

Monday, June 06, 2016

Two movie companies duke it out over distribution rights for an animated feature.

A week after The Weinstein Company went after Open Road and the producers of the upcoming Playmobil movie over who actually has the right to distribute the animated pic, the other side hit back. ...

“There was never any contract with TWC,” says a cross-complaint (read it here) filed today by producers Moritz Borman and Dimitri Rassam and their respective companies in Los Angeles Superior Court.

“TWC launched this controversy, masking its current financial instability by filing a strike suit with no written license attached,” the eight-page filing claims, also calling the whole matter a case “about a failed movie license negotiation which cratered.” ...

The interesting part of this?

Forty years ago, No companies would be fighting over a cartoon. Nobody would care.

Some small-budget, animated trifle would get made, either domestically or overseas, and some podunk distribution company, working with fifty prints, would do a half-assed distribution. They would run matinees in medium-sized markets, make $722,000 (all in) and call it a day.

Major distributors would stay away in droves ... because nobody cared. It was ANIMATION. There was no money in it. (Except for Disney).

Paramount's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows climbed to the top of the Russian box office in its debut with $4.8 million.

However, the movie came in 23 percent behind the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which bowed in late summer 2014.

TMNT 2's unimpressive showing comes as proof that sequels are not doing too well in Russia these days. Recently, Alice Through the Looking Glass and The Huntsman: Winter's War similarly did worse than the respective franchises' previous movies. ...

The entertainment press has been beating the drum about sequels not doing well, and wondering what the hell the problem is.

There actually isn't a problem.

Our fine entertainment conglomerates have just made a bunch of lacklustre movies that fewer people want to see. And so fewer people see them. (J.J. Abrams doesn't have difficulties getting audiences to pay good money for his sequels.)

The thoughts and observations of the leaders of The Animation Guild (TAG), Local 839 IATSE. Jason MacLeod is the Business Representative, KC Johnson is the President. Mike Sauer is Assistant to the Business Representative.

This weblog reflects their individual personal opinions and does not necessarily represent the official position of the Animation Guild.

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